Designing Proactive Thought Partners for Writing
2026-09-01 • Human-Computer Interaction
Human-Computer InteractionArtificial IntelligenceComputation and Language
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied how AI can help people while they write by offering smart, customizable support beyond just suggesting text. They tested a tool where users could set up AI "partners" that proactively give ideas or feedback at helpful moments. People used these partners to help plan, come up with ideas, and check their work, and they liked when the AI gave tips gently without being distracting. The authors suggest that writing support tools should focus on personal settings, good timing, user involvement, and clear but subtle ways to show suggestions.
proactive AIwriting supportcognitive assistancetechnology probeuser customizationidea generationself-monitoringhuman-computer interactioninterface designnon-intrusive feedback
Authors
Chao Zhang, Abe Davis, Chih-Wei Chen, Chin-Chia Hsu
Abstract
Writing involves diverse cognitive activities, from ideation to revision, and writers' needs vary across individuals and moments. Proactive AI promises to provide the right support at the right time, yet existing proactive tools largely focus on generic textual assistance, such as autocomplete. This paper studies the design space of proactive thought partners: AI agents that proactively offer customizable, higher-level cognitive support during writing. We instantiated this concept in a technology probe and deployed it with 16 participants for one week. The probe allows users to create partners by configuring their roles and proactivity. As users write, relevant partners take the initiative at appropriate moments to offer suggestions. Our findings show that participants configured proactive support through prospective planning, used suggestions for both idea generation and self-monitoring, and valued lightweight visual representations alongside non-directive rhetorical framing for non-intrusive interventions. We derive implications for designing proactive writing assistants around customization, timing, engagement, and representation.